Rafe bolts up from his seat, rage filling his expression like a werewolf when the moon comes out from behind the midnight clouds.
When it comes to his temper, Rafe isn’t sexist.
Anger twists his mouth into a deep scowl, and the waitress steps back.
But Rafe reaches for her.
And in an automatic moment, I jump from the ring, landing right behind her.
I grab her and pull her against me, sidestepping backward as if I am still making calculated moves in the ring, removing her from his reach.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” I growl in Rafe’s direction.
The girl’s body is pressed into mine, and I hold her against me.
I don’t care if we are in the ring or not.
If he so much as lays a finger on her, I’ll knock his fucking lights out.
Chapter 1
Mila
Earlier that night…
“Doyou think it’s true that gentlemen prefer blondes?” Lainey asks as she pulls her booklet from her apron.
It’s bulging with cash, no surprise.
The Cockpit is one of Los Angeles’ most popular sports bars, even if it is a hole in the wall in one of the less ritzy parts of the city.
Contrary to popular belief, LA isn’t all celebrities and point-one-percenters. There’s a lot of average people too, people who like to grab a beer and a burger after a long day at work.
And if their waitress happens to be dressed like a 1950’s flight attendant, well, that’s just icing on the middle-class man’s cake.
And speaking of the stupid uniforms…
“There must be some sexist truth in it seeing as how they force us to wear these terrible blonde wigs,” I say, shoving the tip of one of my pens underneath it to scratch my head.
Lainey laughs, counting her tips. “I made a killing tonight, and I am going out. Somewhere with fruity drinks that I don’t have to buy because a handsome man on the other side of the bar will offer to buy it for me and then ask if I want to dance.”
“Are you daydreaming on the job again, Lainey?” Brynn, one of the lead waitresses, asks with fake sugar in her tone. She’s the resident mean girl.
“Hey Mila, did you hear something?” Lainey asks. “It sounded like a screeching cat.”
Brynn ignores her jab. “You know, girls, if you hate the wigs so much, you could always dye your hair.”
“You mean, like you do?” Lainey smirks, and Brynn glares at her.
“My hair is natural,” she says, taking off her apron.
Natural or dyed, Brynn is the only one at the Cockpit with blonde hair, and because of that, she is the only one that doesn’t have to wear one of these stupid wigs.
She also has our boss, Niko, wrapped around her pinky finger and has somehow earned a hall-pass.
Welcome to the hierarchy of working at a gentlemen’s club rescue bar.
They may not require us to strip, but that’s only because our outfits are so skimpy that the show would be too short if we did.
